Bolt.new alternatives: 3 free & open-source picks
Curated, verified, and actually free. No trials, no crippled tiers. Star counts and last-activity dates checked by hand, not scraped and forgotten.
Same prompt-to-app loop in a cloud sandbox, powered by your own model keys.
Open source visual builder on a real React codebase; the grown-up sibling of the browser sandbox.
last updated 2026-08-07 · no votes, no pay-to-list · just what's real
bolt.diyMIT source, but its WebContainers runtime needs a commercial licence for production business use.
ContinueAcquired and read-only, and an editor agent was never a local prompt-to-app sandbox.
| tool | license | running it | platforms | stars | active |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| open-lovable | open source | self-host, real ops | web, self-hosted | 28,217 | 2025-11 |
| Onlook | open source | docker to self-host | web, self-hosted | 26,433 | 2026-07 |
| Dyad | open source | one-click install | macos, windows | 21,100 | 2026-08 |
People still pay for Bolt.new because the UI can be copied, but high-quality code models, context ranking, safe execution, and constant evaluation are the product. The recurring cost buys model changes, indexing, prompt injection, tool permissions, sandboxing, evaluation, telemetry choices, and IDE compatibility, not just the visible interface. If none of that applies to you, any pick above saves $240 a year.
Is there a free alternative to Bolt.new?
Yes: open-lovable, Onlook, Dyad. Every tool on this page is either open source or genuinely free to use long-term: no trials, no crippled tiers.
Should I just build my own Bolt.new?
Our verdict is NOT REALLY. A consolation build is possible, but the paid product's decisive value sits outside a solo rebuild. For Bolt.new, generate and edit a small web project in a local sandbox from structured prompts. The hard boundary is browser sandbox, model orchestration, package execution, deployment, and hosted compute, plus frontier models, context infrastructure, and execution safety. If you'd rather build, the exact one-shot prompt is free at canivibecodeit.com/bolt-new.
